Dead and Dead Again
by Suchen nach
Summary: Death sucked. Life was a pain in the ass. Ninja here were the exact opposite of stealthy and I was just stuck hoping that my existence meant something here and some god wasn't just laughing his ass off. SI (kinda) insert.
1. Chapter 1

Dying was a curious experience.

One moment I was there, living an ordinary life, having had an infallible belief that everything was okay and at the end of the day I was just going to go home.

~_Badump~Badump~BadumpBadumpBadump~_

There was a flash of pain, of hysteria.

_What's happening_?

A stuttering of my heart

~_Badump~Baaadump~Baaa…dump_~

And then…nothing.

It was so quick that it was over before it really even began. I didn't have any thoughts of my family, no flashbacks of regrets or happy moments just a passing thought of,

_Well, that really sucked_.

There was no white light. There were no relatives waiting to greet me with open arms. In fact, there was absolutely nothing, no gravity or ground, no light either just an all-consuming nothingness. It only lasted a minute or a second or it could have been infinity. Time held no meaning in this place there was only now no future or past just the present of here and now.

This shattered as violently as I had died.

My mother in my new life said I came into life like I was cursing at the world.

She would probably never know how true that statement was.

I don't remember the whole shebang of birth or my mind blocked the experience from me which I am supremely grateful for. Birth is not something I would like to remember.

No, the first thing that I remember is a bright light that was so different from the blackness that had previously engulfed me. There were sights and sounds and smells that were suddenly surrounding me.

It was too much at once for the baby's body that I now had. The control that I had had previously disappeared like so much dust in the wind. My instinct took over and I wailed as long and as hard as I could.

_I died! I'm dead!_

_Ohgodohgodohgod!_

_What is this, where am I?_

_Who are these people?_

There were hands and faces that blurred together and it was **too much**. And then it all stopped and I was placed on a table or a bed with blankets and all too suddenly abandoned.

Still I wailed and wailed until my new body couldn't take it and fell asleep.

The next time I awoke I had a calmer perspective of things. I was still where the nurse had placed me before and if I really concentrated I could hear the noise of scurrying people a ways away. I was rested and ready to find out what the hell had happened.

I did have a few ideas. Something must have gone wrong when I died. I did die, that was a fact I knew it with all the certainty that I had. I didn't want to think about how I had died it didn't matter now even though I was still in shock. My decision to never think about my death was probably just because of shock but it sounded like a great idea and I wasn't about to go against that decision.

No, something had gone wrong because I could still remember my old life. I don't know if after death there was life again, essentially reincarnation. I didn't know if I was an anomaly and whatever deity was up there had looked away for a split second and my soul had slipped by and entered a babies.

I didn't know, I may never know.

The question I asked myself now was not how I got here it _was so what do I do now?_

_And just where exactly was I?_

I could possibly be in another country which would suck because then I would have to learn language all over again or if I really wanted to be creative I could be in a different time period.

Then, it got weird or weirder than it already was to die and then be sucked into an infant's body.

A blurry form of a nurse appeared shocking me out of my musings badly, so badly in fact that it was hard to keep from having a complete meltdown of crying and screaming. Being a baby **sucked, **you couldn't do anything except for lay there and cry and crap and sleep, not necessarily in that order.

"_Hey there wittle girl, your mommy wants to see you, yes she does_. " I didn't understand anything of what she just said just that it was in a ridiculous baby tone that had me more than a little irritated. I was **not** a baby, well maybe I was in body but my mind wasn't and I _despised_ baby talk.

If a baby could look irritated than I certainly had that look down pat. And then she had the audacity to pick me up, which was a horrible experience. I was so incredibly small in this form that everything was giant to me and being up this high made me feel like I was at the top of a skyscraper.

As I tried to keep the wailing down to a minimum, only a few sniffles escaped this time, my eyes focused on something very peculiar. The nurse had on a headband, a konoha headband to be precise.

_This was not right_.

Nurses do not wear headbands from a fictional world. They do not cosplay or if they did they didn't at work.

_This was not right._

**NotRightNotRightNotRight **

I was dead and reborn and placed smack dab right in the middle of the fictional world of Naruto.

_**Well shit.**_


	2. Chapter 2

I was in the world of Naruto.

No….**No.**

This was not a nice place, people _died _here. That was normal for these people.

Shinobi were hopped up on super powered jutsu's and could literally rip a person to pieces. I wasn't ready for this.

I just _died! _I wasn't ready to die again_._

I was hyperventilating, I knew I was hyperventilating. I needed to calm down. Breathe just _breathe_, the nurse was even getting worried she was rubbing my back and making hushing noises. It wasn't working, the nurse was foreign and couldn't offer me the comfort of something familiar. Her scent was strange, her hands were rough and I couldn't understand what she was saying at all.

And then I was plopped into the arms of a person my brain was intimately familiar with. I quieted immediately. I _knew_ this person, I had never seen her before and she too wore the shinobi headband but my body _knew_ this woman.

This was my mother. She had so much love and awe in her eyes that she couldn't be mistaken for anybody else. My brain was still in shock but the infant side of me was at home and surrounded by a warmth that permeated into my very core.

She looked down with tired eyes and cooed at me watching my face like she couldn't get enough of me.

It was the same for me. I looked up at her and tried to focus on her face. She looked at me with such love how could I not immediately and unconditionally love her back.

She calmed me with just a touch of her warm hands.

It had been the same in my old life. My mother had been a wonderful giving person and it seemed that I had gotten the same kind of mother in my new life. It would help in the years to come, she was a shinobi, she would most likely be severely disappointed if I did not continue the line. If I was a normal child I would be brainwashed into thinking that the only worthwhile dream in life would be to be a shinobi.

Right now though the only thing that mattered was her looking at me like I was her entire world.

I met my father for the first time a week after I was brought home from the hospital. I thought that maybe he had been away on a mission and had just gotten back because he also wore the same headband as my mother.

The first time that I met my father he was just as loving as when I first met my new mother. I even thought that I caught a tear going down his face when he held me.

They were amazing. Had my previous parents been like this?

My mother was almost identical to my new one but my parents together? No, babies in my old life were not regarded as preciously as they were here. New life was precious but common place in the old world. There was so much death here that every new life was a miracle. The medical field here was also not as advanced as where I came from. Mothers died in childbirth much more frequently here. Overall a baby was just more precious here.

The first few days after I met my father were not eventful. It was difficult to even hold up my head, so crawling wasn't even on the radar and besides being roused for meals I just laid in the same location. I had ample time to think about my strange new situation.

If I were to be a shinobi in this new life then I couldn't have asked for better parents. And I _was_ going to be a shinobi I would **not** be a sitting duck when the war came. I was terrified out of my wits but I would fight for my life in a world where the average life of a shinobi only reached a fraction of the years of a civilian.

To be honest I was even a little excited about it. Here was something to live for, something to strive for. Nothing in my old life had held my interest for long and even then it was with halfhearted acknowledgement.

I would need a head start in life if I wanted to be a ninja. I didn't recognize any noticeable characteristics of my parents so I was definitely not involved in any clan. I would probably never be great unless I trained to the absolute best of my abilities and even then I would never have the talent a clan child would have.

_Focus_. I told myself. I didn't need to freak out about a future far ahead of me just yet. There would be years to worry. Right now I needed to work on my first step towards becoming a ninja, chakra control. However, I encountered my first of many setbacks to come.

It was hard to focus on anything for long periods of time. Frequently, I would lose myself to my infant self and time would pass. Sometimes it would be a couple days or a week and one time a whole month.

At first I thought that I would lose my old self through these lapses of time. I was so incredibly scared the first time that it happened that I forced myself to focus on my surroundings for two days. That was an incredibly bad mistake. I had a horrible migraine the whole time and caused a horrible panic for my parents at the time. I wailed and wailed and screamed my hurt to the world, babies could not take even the smallest of pains and it was near impossible to stuff down the urges of my baby self.

It _hurt _to just to think but I didn't want to lose myself, to forget everything that made me, **me **that was truly terrifying.

I couldn't stop it though and after the first two times it happened I realized that it was just my body trying to adjust and grow. The one time that I blanked out for a month still freaked me out though. After all I was just guesstimating time so it really could have been longer.

It was when I gained the ability to heave myself up and crawl that I began to be able to focus for longer periods of time.

It was time.

I would start looking for my chakra and start trying to mold it.

I made sure that my parents weren't around to watch I didn't need to be labeled a prodigy on top of everything else. Especially when I wasn't one. I had been smart in my old life but it was the kind of smart that was instinct not the kind of smart that Shikamaru would have.

My father was away on another mission, I think, I still couldn't understand most of what was being said. I could catch small words like my name, Mai, or hello and goodbye.

My mother was in the kitchen and busy with dinner. Now was the perfect time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Helloooo the absolutely amazing people who favorited and are following my fanfic. You are all very much appreciated. **

**I just came out to say that I would love a beta hint hint.**

Seeing chakra was easy, everything was absolutely saturated with it in this world I was actually surprised that it took concentration for some ninja to sense it. I was constantly bombarded and needled by chakra that my attention span suffered pretty severely from it.

My chakra senses still weren't very strong and a person had to stand very close to me before I noticed them individually any farther away than that and it was all just a nonsensical blob to me. I thought it was a bit weird that I hadn't felt my chakra pathways forming in the first place but in a way I was glad not to go through that, it was probably a lot like teething which I wasn't looking forward to also.

_It sucked_.

I could sense all of this chakra constantly buzzing around and trying to get my attention and I could also sense my own but it remained stubbornly out of reach. Every time I almost had it my chakra would trickle out of my grasp and flow away.

"_Mai, what are you doing honey_?"

Oh crap, I didn't even hear her come in. Her damn footsteps were so silent!

I immediately dropped any concentration I was working on and started to play with the abundant toys set in front of me. I cooed and giggled at her trying to make it seem like I was just a normal kid( what a joke, she deserved a normal kid not a reincarnated weirdo like me.)

"_Oh Mai, you're so silly. Why don't you help me out in the kitchen?" She smiled down at me and lifted me up to take with her to the kitchen_.

This…would not work. I couldn't be interrupted every time that I tried to meditate. I huffed in irritation but when Kaa-san turned to look at me questioningly I hurriedly clapped my hands together and made baby talk to her. She just smiled at me and turned back to what she was doing before.

_Ok, I can do this; I just need to practice at night_.

I could safely meditate on finding my chakra at night time. I wouldn't have anyone to observe me or interrupt me. The only problem was that I would be increasingly tired in the day time which may raise suspicions. **But**, it was really the only way to do this if I wanted to get a head start in being a ninja than some sacrifices would have to be made. I may just be being entirely too paranoid cause babies sleep a lot anyways, right? I really wouldn't know I really didn't like kids in my old life so I had nothing to measure progress or characteristics of a normal child against mine.

The rest of the day was boringly normal. Tou-san came home with a swirl of leaves and a surprise attack on Kaa-san where she ruthlessly beat him into submission. I was the next victim and picked up and twirled around while Tou-san smacked a big kiss on my cheek.

_Good lord, this man was incredibly touchy feely_.

My old family was not. Not in any sense of the word. They were a much more rough and tumbly kind of family. A kind of family where you said I love you through a batch of wrestling and sarcastic jokes. My father and my brother decidedly raised me up to be a tomboy and my old mother's attempts to get me to be a real girl were an abysmal failure.

It hurt to think of my past life. To think of them was to constantly remember that there was no going back. I would never see them again, never talk to them again.

Thinking of them led to the most intense sadness I had ever felt. It started in my gut as an unpleasant tingling sensation where it would travel up into my throat, making me choke and gasp and retch because _I couldn't breathe. _

I tried not to make comparisons between my family now and my family then but occasionally I would slip and then the _choking, retching, gasping would start_. And Kaa-san would panic and try to calm me without really knowing what was wrong because Tou-san was rarely ever there.

I had a lot of bad days in the beginning….

Kaa-san tucked me in and kissed my head before heading to her room right down the hall. I settled in and waited until I heard the _click_ of her door closing before rising into a sitting position. This body was so pudgy and clumsy it was a wonder I was able to crawl anywhere with any coordination at all.

I crossed my legs and started to breathe slower and slower searching for something that would give me a clue as to how to direct my chakra. It was **right there** but every time I reached for it, it would shift away and I would be left even more frustrated than before. I shifted and sighed trying to relieve some of the numbness before trying again.

_There!_

My attention snapped to a small coil of energy in the center of my being**. **No matter where it shifted when I reached for it the chakra would always go back to that one spot right in the middle of my stomach, or that's what it felt like.

It seemed so fragile. Chakra size is related to the mental and physical training of the body, at least that was what I remembered from the show, but I hadn't realized it would be so small.

It made sense though, I was a child now. As much as it sucked ( what an inadequate word) I would have to relearn everything and that would make my chakra grow. If I could just learn to efficiently use my tiny amount of chakra now than when I'm older it wouldn't matter if my pool of chakra was only ever average because I could use every last drop as efficiently as possible.

It was beautiful though. I could feel it now that I had focused on it and chakra felt like life. It felt like I could survive anything, it felt like the most beautiful day or having a long drink of water after a trip through the desert. I could get addicted to this feeling.

_Ha! The first ninja ever to be diagnosed with an addiction to her own chakra. Hmph, that would be the day_.

Alright I found it, first step to eventual chakra control crossed off my list. Not a big step but a step nonetheless.

I was a little doubtful about trying to control it; it wasn't like I had a physical way of just grabbing it. This was all mental work.

Woo, okay I could do this, I reached out a mental hand and tried to touch the warm coil. But as calmly as it had been waiting as soon as I touched it, it wrapped itself into an even tinier ball and buried itself into a deep place that I couldn't follow to.

The movement shocked me into awareness and I surfaced with a gasp as my eyes snapped open.

_Urk. _Coming back so suddenly from meditation to awareness made be gag. I took a couple deep breathes before thinking about what had just happened.

I crawled over to the side of my crib and grasped a wooden bar to heave myself up on. The window a foot above the top rail of my crib was open just a crack. The moon was high up in the middle of the sky and the stars twinkled brightly.

It had taken half the night to just do that.

I frowned and plopped back down on my soft mattress.

_That shouldn't have happened, should it have_?

I had nothing to compare to. Did I do it wrong? Nothing that I remembered from the show really went into depth about how to control chakra.

I was young so it could be that my chakra was just not developed enough to actively control just yet. Or it could be that there was something wrong with me.

Gosh, that would be depressing, to have been born in a world that had chakra only to find out that I couldn't actually use it.

_I can't just give up,_ I thought determinedly, _this wasn't the end of the road I would try as many times as I had to, no matter what happened._

So I settled down crossed my legs and tried again.

Morning came and I was tired and cranky, making no progress the night before was disappointing but mostly expected. I was not a prodigy; these things were not going to come easily just because this was my second attempt at life.

I could hear someone banging around in the kitchen and I knew someone, most likely Kaa-san would probably come in soon to get me.

_So much for taking a short nap_.

Footsteps were coming down the hallway so I tiredly turned my head towards the door and waited.

"_Good morning Mai, mommy loves you more than ever_!"

Kaa-san came bursting in and the room seemed just a little brighter with her here. She smiled down at me and lifted me up to her hip.

"_Todays a busy day. We're going out today and I'll bring you to the park and_…."

I drowned her out, most of what she said I couldn't understand and I was tired.

Kaa-san proceeded to dress and feed me in a whirlwind of mothering and smiles. I was just too tired to put up much of a fight.

I only actually started to wake up when she plopped me down in some grass and walked away to visit with some other mothers. This place was a lot more lenient with their kids. Mothers didn't worry as much about where their kid was and if they had a boo-boo or not. In fact, ninja mothers were just a lot less mothering when outside in general. Or at least that was what it looked like when I was outside. I couldn't know if they were more nurturing inside their own homes like Kaa-san was with me.

There were some other children there playing what looked like kickball. They were yelling and laughing and running around spastically.

I was much younger than they were but the place that Kaa-san had placed me in had two other children that looked to be my age close by.

It was spring I guessed as the sun was high in the sky but there was still a bite to the air. There were only a couple of trees but they had yet to fully leaf out like they would for summer.

I could feel the chakra surrounding me, it was like an annoying itch on my brain begging me to just pay attention to it! It made me feel overwhelmed like I was an ant in this world and anything I planned to do for this future was a laughable effort at best.

I frowned at my thought_. Wow, that's morbid, _I thought to myself sarcastically.

It didn't matter if what I did never changed anything, as long as I tried I wouldn't feel guilty.

With a heave of mental exertion I tore my attention away from the outside chakra and focused on what was going on around me.

I looked closer at the children near me but nothing about them was familiar, they both had brown hair and brown eyes and no other remarkable feature.

_Look the other way. Look the other way! I'm not here, I'm not interesting_.

**Crap**. The two other kids were crawling over to me. I really was not interested in playing baby with them.

_They were so gross_!

The one that looked like it was maybe a girl was closer to me and she had drool covering her chin.

I made to get up and crawl away, man I was too tired for this, but she was on me like a vulture. I looked on in horror as one of her sticky hands made to clumsily grab at my obnoxiously bright orange hair. She had probably never seen that color on a person before or something. When I first saw my hair I was surprised too but I did in fact see a boy with blue hair before, I think it had to do with the chakra influencing everything in this world, I mean if a ninja could walk on water than why couldn't they be born with orange hair, just saying. All that mattered was she had her pudgy little hands in _my_ hair and _there was another one behind me_!

Ack! Now they were both tugging on my hair! _This was soooo not cool_.

Enough was enough I smacked the little girls hands away from my hair and turned around to do the same to the (boy's?) hands. But before I had fully lifted my hands from hers she let out a sharp yelp and started to wail. Big crocodile tears were welling up in her eyes and her noes started to snot.

Her mother ran over to her and picked her up simultaneously knocking me backwards.

"Control your brat, bitch." She snarled at my mother who had come over at the same time as the other woman.

"Your daughter…." the kid's mom started to say something else before she noticed the death glare my mother had directed at her and the sun glinting off of Kaa-san's ninja headband. Her face paled dramatically and she gathered her things before running off back into the main part of the village.

My mother had gathered me up into her arms and had stayed suspiciously quiet throughout the whole ordeal. She finally responded after the woman had run away.

"You did good Mai, She whispered into my hair, always hit back."

She finally lifted her head and I looked up with my dark blue eyes. She had been serious but now she beamed down at me with a huge smile and started to ramble about what she had left to do today and started to walk home.

I pondered on what had just happened. The woman had obviously been scared of Kaa-san, but **why.** Kaa-san had never even yelled at the woman, which she would have totally been entitled to do I thought. It seemed that citizens liked ninja when they protected them but didn't want them around in their daily lives. Or at least that was my reasoning on what had just happened.

_I'm much too tired for this_, I thought grumpily.


	4. Chapter 4

I woke up in a blind panic.

_Oh god, it was just like dying again and again and againandagainandagain_.

It was still night outside and I could hear screaming, the kind of screaming( the kind of screaming that made me want to hide in a dark corner and never come out). I smelt smoke from a fire that was so thick I could almost feel the heat of the flames. The thick scent of it clogged my nose and had me _coughing and coughing from breathing but I needed to breath and I couldn't stop coughing._

The sting of the smoke brought tears to my eyes and made it hard to look around my small room.

~_Where was all that damn smoke coming from anyways_?

My chakra sensing seemed cut off somehow when I tried to open myself up like it had curled up into me and kept me from sensing anything. But it wasn't right, I felt like a limb had been cut off, like I had seen color and now everything was black and white. I dug and dug and tugged at my stupid resisting chakra and finally with a mental tear and groan everything flooded into at once.

I immediately regretted the decision, instead of sensing everything that was close enough to sense like the potted plant on my windowsill that Kaa-san had planted all I could sense was a thick malevolent swell of chakra. It was so angry, my god it was so angry! Like it wanted to rip the world apart and it still wouldn't be **enough. **Like ripping every man, woman and child apart and feasting on their blood would not be enough, nothing would ever be enough to satiate this chakra monster.

It was the most concentrated chakra I had ever felt in my measly one year of life and it was so angry. It didn't matter where I went I just needed to go. I needed to run as far away from that swell of chakra as I could get. It didn't matter that I was only one year old in this body, I was a terrified animal and my survival instincts said flee!

I was up and over my crib in the time it took to blink, still it wasn't fast enough, it would never be fast enough or far enough if I could still feel that rage. I stumbled and crawled my way through roiling black smoke to the back door and without thinking firmly grabbed the metal door handle.

It was so hot, too hot! It seared my palm and I heard a sizzle and popping sound that only comes from cooking meat on the barbeque. Snatching my hand back with a wail of pain I cradled it to my chest falling over onto my butt with a plot. Snot and tears ran down my face and I cried hysterically, it hurt so much, every nerve ending felt like it was being burned again and again. Even after the pain numbed to a throbbing I couldn't twitch my fingers, every time I did the pain would roar up and sink its jaws into my hand.

Cold water, I needed cold water to stop further damage or something, after a few failed tries of standing I managed on wobbly legs and feet to clumsily make my way to the only bathroom in the house. My body couldn't move fast enough, each step a chore of finding my balance and figuring out how to move each part of my body again. The pain wasn't helping either.

I couldn't reach the sink so I settled on the shower knob and put it on full blast stupidly forgetting that I had, had to crawl all the way into the shower to do so. The water was ice cold and brought a stuttering hiss out of me, it felt like I had fallen into a pond in the middle of winter, not winter here though like a winter back home where negative fifteen was a regular occurrence. My hand felt better already though and if the fire that was causing that thick roiling smoke reached the house than it would have trouble burning a soaking wet person. Not that that was much comfort though.

Climbing out of the stupid tub I went over to where the light switch was and turned on the fan switch that was right next to it. Touching that stupid, stupid door handle was a horrible idea and the situation was perfectly clear, I would either survive in this house or I would die in this house. I briefly acknowledged my situation before shoving the depressing thought to the back corner of my mind and denying it. I would live, there was no other choice no other outcome that I would accept.

I was hoping that the fan would suck the smoke out of the bathroom and with the shower on I would have a place to go should the fire reach this far. Not a great idea, actually a horrible idea but the only one I could come up with and carry out in this stupid body.

I stayed in there until morning…..

**Tou-san and Kaa-san were out there! **What a stupid thought, of course they were out there. They had been fighting for Konoha and I and all I did was curl up and cry. What a stupid, stupid girl I am. What a selfish girl I am.

I sat up from the cold hard tile of the bathroom floor and wiped the tears from my face being careful not to use my bad hand. My eyelids felt raw and swollen. A thick rotten feeling was festering in my stomach. I was so incredibly worried for my family that I was making myself sick. It had to be midmorning by now and still no one was home. I didn't want to stay in this confined area anymore. The smoke had died out to just a faint smell overlaying everything but I had been too scared to move. I gathered up my limited amount of courage that I had left and finally, finally left the bathroom.

I fell again and again my tired and sore body not making it very far down the hallway. The last fall I had landed on my bad hand and lay there shrieking at the pain. Minutes past and I still didn't want to get up again. Hadn't I done enough yet? Even if I found Tou-san or Kaa-san what could I really even do for them?

. **Get up**, I told myself mercilessly. If Kaa-san and Tou-san were still out there they must have been hurt and a little fall like that was nothing to cry over. With an aching back I pushed myself up and waddled my way to the end of the hallway and reached the door to the living room that was open just a crack like it always was. I heaved the door open and took off towards the front of the house it was slow going without Kaa-san to just carry me everywhere.

The front door opened slowly as I just made it into the living area and Tou-san walked in. My heart jumped into my throat and I gave a joyful laugh at seeing my Tou-san alive and well.

Tou-san just looked up from the floor with a dead look.

_Don't look at me like that. _

_He shouldn't look at me like that._

_It's wrong, something's wrong._

My eyes were wide and I lost any happiness I had felt earlier.

"Kaa-chan"? I asked him hopefully, it was one of the only words I spoke even though I knew more.

Tou-san lost a little of his deadened look but it was only replaced by a crippling sadness that made his eyes water and his knees drop to the hardwood floor with a deafening **thud. **He covered his face in shaking hands and sobbed with a gut-wrenching sadness.

I took a step back and even though I thought I had cried all of my tears earlier still more came because Kaa-san was never coming home again.

Kaa-san was dead.

There was no individual funeral for my mother just a mass gathering of shinobi and family members to watch as their family and friends' names were engraved on a towering memorial stone.

I looked with a depressed gaze at Tou-san who stood next to me and held one of my hands in a bruising grip my other one was wrapped in gauze and would be permanently scarred for the rest of my life.

There was a look of nothingness on his face. There was no joyful man who came home after a mission to attack me with kisses. Kaa-san was gone and even though I hurt more than I ever had before there was no comfort he could spare for me. No reassuring look or hug came from him, just a bruising grip on my tiny and fragile hand that told me everything and nothing all at once.

The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in sight. It felt wrong, in the movies it was always raining at a funeral, it should be raining. I wanted it to rain because I had cried my last tear a week before when Tou-san came through that door.

I had never lost someone even in the **before **not counting when I died and ended up here. It was debilitating and it felt like my heart would stop beating.

As the reinstated Hokage said his last words before the funeral was over I looked once more around me and I knew this was something I would never fully recover from. I would heal a little my wounds would scab over but the loss of a mother I had loved so much would never be completely gone from my heart.

Everyone was turning to leave but Tou-san still stood in the same position looking forward at nothing. I looked questioningly up at him and tugged his hand to get his attention. His head turned slowly down to me and he stared for a minute.

_Does he even know who I am?_

It felt like he didn't anymore, I was becoming scared at the thought of losing him right after I had lost Kaa-san but as soon as I had begun to think that I had lost him too he bent down and scooped me up and held me with a tight grip.

The funeral was long over and everyone was gone and finally, finally Tou-san turned with me in his arms to go home too.


End file.
